Letting Go on the Open Road
by Person4
Summary: It's been almost a year since the show, and Duncan and Courtney haven't seen each other in person since it wrapped up. Now Duncan has a plan for catching up, if he can just convince her to let him steal a few of her precious summer work weeks.
1. Prologue: Runnin' Down a Dream

**Note:** Welcome to my second long TDI-fic! Someday I will write something for the fandom that's _not_ Duncan/Courtney (plus the occasional special guest), but today is not that day. I'm expecting this one to run roughly eight to ten chapters, and I _hope_ that I'll be able to get the parts out fairly quickly so y'all never need very long between updates, but this one is going to take a _lot_ more research than Duncan and Courtney bouncing off each other in a resort does so it'll probably never be quite as fast as _Sequesterville_ usually was.

Anyway, here's the prologue! I hope you all enjoy.

* * *

Two months ago:

It wasn't often that Courtney had a free afternoon, although that was mostly by design. She didn't _like_ not having anything to do. She didn't like wasting her time lazing around the house, or hanging out at the mall, or going to the movies. People who didn't understand her thought it must be a miserable and boring way to lead her life, but as far as she was concerned they were idiots who didn't understand how satisfying her life could be. If she wanted to do something that made her happy, she could arrange her schedule so she had the entire afternoon for practicing her violin. If she wanted fun, she might go for a jog or to swim laps at the community pool so she could keep her body in shape even as she entertained herself. If she wanted to feel fulfilled, the gratitude she received after a day spent doing volunteer work would do it every time.

And if she craveed some _other_, less standard, form of amusement, well, Duncan was never more than a phone call or email away to help her come up with plans and pranks to scratch _that_ itch. Even those she always pulled off on a tight schedule, something she suspected was the reason she seemed to be much better at avoiding being caught than he was. Somehow, so far as she knew, nobody had guessed yet that she was the one behind them, even after her fall from grace on _Total Drama Island_, and even though it was hard to hold back a satisfied smile every time she overheard awed whispers about the amazing practical joker who'd appeared in their town that fall.

In short, Courtney didn't like starting out a day without at least a vague plan for how she was going to spend it, to be solidified as it went on.

Which was why when she opened an email from Duncan that only contained one brief line--'_Hey, Princess, keep three weeks open this summer and let me know when they'll be.'_--her reply was instantaneous.

'_No way._'

As far as she was concerned that was that, but he must have doing something on his computer because only a minute later, while she was trying to start researching a paper she needed to write, she saw that she had another new message.

_'Be glad I'm giving you a chance pick the day, Darling. You don't, and I'm showing up when _I _want and grabbing you off the street.'_

She frowned at the screen, wishing that there was some way that he could see her through it. It almost seemed worth digging up her digital camera just to make sure he'd know how annoyed she was, but she decided against it. It would probably only make him laugh anyway.

'_Really, Duncan? _Kidnapping? _I'm fairly sure they'd try you as an adult for that._' Really, she had no idea, but it seemed likely. After a moment, she added, '_Not to mention that you'd be proving that my parents were right when they tried to convince me to cut off all contact with you before you could degenerate into worse criminal behaviour. Honestly, I thought you were less predictable than that._'

She could imagine his smirk when he got the email, the way he was always so annoyingly, charmingly, pleased when he remembered that every time she had even the slightest amount of contact with him she was going against her parents wishes. His own parents were apparently the exact opposite way around; overjoyed that he'd somehow gotten a straight-laced girlfriend and still hadn't driven her away. There had been a time when she was a little bit worried that he might break off contact with her just _because_ of that parental approval, and his bad boy attitude rebelling against it. But as it got closer and closer to being a year since they'd first met one and other and he kept annoying her as often as ever she stopped expecting it to end at any time, even though she knew how bad the odds were against long-distance relationships even when the people involved _weren't_ teenagers.

'_It's not kidnapping when you _want _to go,_' Duncan replied a minute later, _and you're not gonna find anybody who believes that you'd rather be spending your whole summer at home than spending time with me._'

'_Well, _somebody's _feeling creepy and egotistical today,_' she typed back, rolling her eyes at the screen.

'_Stop trying to change the subject, Princess. Just make some time and get back to me with when._'

'_You'd better get comfortable, _Darling_. It's going to be a long wait._' She closed her email program entirely with a small frown before he could reply again and tempt her into continuing the ridiculous discussion, then went back to her homework.

It wasn't long before she caught herself absently tapping the corner of her notebook with her pen instead of taking notes, and staring blankly at the article she was trying to read without any of the information actually reaching her mind. "Oh, _damn it,_" she muttered to herself before setting the notebook aside and reaching for her scheduler.

She supposed that it couldn't hurt to at least look at what days she still had free.

o 0 O 0 o

Halfway across the country, Duncan leaned back and grinned at her last message, pleased at how the discussion had gone. Sure, she was saying no, but he was expecting a few weeks worth of that; it was why he was getting an early start instead of waiting for summer to actually begin to bring it up.

When a couple of minutes passed without her getting back to the email he'd sent in response to her last one he realized she was done talking for the day and went back to what he'd been doing. He wasn't going to get behind on his plans just because _she_ felt like being difficult.

He had a wide range of websites opened up--Mapquest in one tab, his bank statement in another, a wilderness supply store in a third, and more besides--and made an occasional note about one thing or another as he jumped back and forth between them. But, even as he got into what he was doing, he couldn't resist going back to her last email every now and then and smirking at it in a way that he knew would annoy the hell out of her if she could see it.

It was the 'Darling' that did it. The moment he'd seen it any doubts he'd had about his chances of winning her over in the end had vanished.

He might use pet names with her all the time, but she only used them back when her mind was shifting from its stick-up-the-ass default state to something more on his wavelength. And once that started, it was all just a matter of time.


	2. One: The Trip Begins With a Kiss

Courtney woke up at three-thirty in the morning, after having claimed to have had a migraine headache the night before as an excuse to go to bed unusually early.

Even though it was so early in the morning that most people would probably say it was still late at night, she was wide awake the moment her alarm clock, stuffed under her pillow so the noise would be too muffled to wake her parents, went off. She supposed she could count that as one of the few benefits to having been on the show; ever since leaving Camp Wawanakwa she'd never had any trouble waking up or going to sleep at any insane time when she had some reason to keep odd hours. Her body was probably just glad that it was being woken up by a normal clock, instead of from the shock of some of Chris' wake-up calls.

She left her room and snuck up to the attic as silently as she could, glad that her old house had an actual staircase leading up to it instead of a hatch in the ceiling so she didn't need to worry about the noise of a ladder. Even so, she went completely still at every tiny creak the stairs made, listening hard for any sign that she'd woken up one of her parents. She hadn't turned on any lights on her way up so that even if one of them _did_ get up there wouldn't be any hint of what she was doing. Luckily, she didn't need light to find what she'd gone upstairs to get; since their luggage was the most-used things her family stored up there they were always right next to the stairs.

She had to be even more cautious returning to her room, the suitcases she held in each hand and the small duffle bag she'd slung over her shoulder seeming to seek out every inch of the narrow stairway walls they could find to bump against no matter how carefully she tried to maneuver them. It wasn't until she had them safely in her room, and had waited in the dark for another ten minutes just to make absolutely sure neither of her parents had woken up, that she finally relaxed and switched on her lamp.

Of course, then she had to face the problem that she had no idea what to pack. She knew that Duncan planned to take her out of town, and that if he had his way they would be gone for a few weeks. She also knew that, even though she'd _tried_ to talk him down to two weeks at most, they probably would end up being gone for the full three weeks he wanted, if for no other reason (that she was willing to admit) than that he'd be the one driving and could just refuse to bring her home. Of course, she _could_ just buy a bus ticket, or even splurge on a plane ticket, if she really wanted to cut the trip short, but she'd filled her schedule for that third week with optional things that she could easily skip anyway, just in case she actually enjoyed whatever he was planning.

But she had absolutely no idea what that plan was. Duncan had been frustratingly close-mouthed about the entire thing--"No way am I giving you a chance to weasel out of this if you decide you don't like where we're going, Princess," he'd said during one conversation shortly after he'd finally convinced her to pick a date--so she didn't know whether she should pack for lounging around on a beach somewhere every day, getting dragged into some three week long prank-fest, or something entirely different. She assumed that he wouldn't be able to afford taking her someplace fancy for that entire time, and that he wouldn't _want_ to even if he did have the money, so she wouldn't need to bring a bunch of nice things. She _hoped_ that he'd have warned her if he was planning on something more out-there for the trip, like whitewater rafting or mountain climbing, where she'd want something durable to wear. That was as far as she could narrow it down.

She ended up opting for the very plain, assuming that it would let her fit in at the widest variety of places; solid-colored tees and jeans which she mostly kept around for times when she was helping out on something messy, light button-up shirts and khakis, a couple of thin sweaters and a windbreaker in case there was ever a chilly night or rainy day. Breathable fabrics, so she wasn't as likely to start stinking if he didn't fit time at a laundromat into his plans and she needed to wear the same things more than once without a wash in-between. A swim suit. One pretty dress that she knew she looked good in, just in case he decided to act like a _normal_ boyfriend for a change and surprise her with dinner at a nice place some night. Not that she'd be getting her hopes up for that. If he thought the clothes she brought were too dull, it would be his own stupid fault for not giving her even the tiniest guidelines to plan by.

She stuffed the duffle with non-clothing essentials. Shampoo and conditioner, make-up, toothpaste, her one pair of sneakers in case they ever needed to do a lot of walking and she wanted something even more comfortable than her usual sensible flats, a few books so she'd never get bored. Even once she thought she had everything she kept wandering around her room with a frown on her face, well aware that it was practically vacation law that people always forgot at least one thing they really wanted to have with them.

She stopped to consider her new spare violin, bought earlier that year to replace the one Bridgette's clumsiness had shattered. Playing was one of her favorite ways of letting off stress--half the reason she'd brought her old instrument on the island with her to begin with--something she was sure she'd be needing to do from time to time if she was really going to be spending three weeks with only Duncan for company.

After a moment she decided to pass it up. She could already foresee Duncan making fun of her for packing too much with the three bags she had, even though as far as she was concerned eventually needing to rewear clothes whether they'd been washed or not meant she wasn't packing _enough_. She didn't need to add a violin case on top of that. Instead she just decided to grab a bottle of painkillers, so she could combat the headaches he was sure to give her that way.

And that was it, as far as she could tell. There was nothing else she could think of that she'd really need to have with her, and definitely nothing that she couldn't afford to just buy a spare of if she did find herself missing it. She was ready to go, but still had a good twenty minutes left before she had planned to meet up with Duncan. She decided that she might as well make herself some breakfast, even though she couldn't afford the noise anything requiring actual cooking would cause and needed to settle for cold cereal and fruit. It would give her something to do as she worked out the message she'd be leaving for her mom and dad.

They had absolutely no idea that she'd was leaving, of course. If she'd given them even the tiniest clue they would have forbidden her outright from going, and she doubted that she'd ever be rebellious enough to go against a direct order from her parents while she was still living under their roof. Under normal circumstances she could bargain and beg until they could come to some sort of compromise, but she knew that wasn't an option this time. Even though they'd never met Duncan, had based their opinions of him entirely on the show when they knew from watching how she was portrayed on it that the wasn't always entirely fair, they _hated_ him. She'd only avoided being banned from staying in touch with him by letting them think that she'd broken off contact on her own once she'd readjusted to her usual life. They would never in a million years allow her to go off alone with him to parts unknown; she was already having to run plans through her mind about how she was even going to be able to keep _talking_ to him once she came back.

If she was very careful she might be able to get them to believe that she'd snuck off entirely on her own, with the added stress that had come from being the president of the student council during the previous school year on top of all her other responsibilities to blame for why she'd want a break. Her parents didn't believe in taking holidays to unwind, which made for an easy explanation about why she snuck off without telling them. The day before she'd even taken the time to doctor the evidence around her room to make it look like she'd been secretly planning a trip; guidebooks and maps in her desk with notes and marks scribbled on them, a couple of lines added to every few journal entries going back over a month mentioning a desire to get away and places she'd like to go, all hints of Duncan removed from her computer and then bookmarks to travel websites and copies of bus schedules added to it.

If they didn't buy that, it would become a matter of finding a way to twist whatever they said into something that would let her keep to the letter of their law instead of the spirit. If that happened, the best case scenario would be them saying she was banned from seeing him; it wasn't as if she expected to have a chance to see him in the flesh for another year after she got back, just in time for her to be leaving home so she'd be well-settled into whatever city she decided to go college in before classes started. Problem averted.

Those thoughts were on her mind as she flipped to a fresh sheet on the message pad they kept next to the phone and began to write. '_Dear Father and Mother,_' she started, and grimaced a little at the formality of it. It felt silly when she called them mom and dad like almost anyone else usually, but she knew that the sense of respect would make a positive impression on them, and she needed to earn up as much good-will as she could.

'_You may have noticed by the time you find this note that I've already left the house this morning. I'm afraid that I'm not going to be back soon; I needed to get away for a while. I'm sorry that I never discussed it with you or woke you up to say good-bye, but I know that you wouldn't agree with this plan. Don't worry about my work and clubs, I've already arranged things so my schedule is free until I come back._'

Her frown deepened as she looked at the blank space left on the page. Usually she could throw off well-written professional-sounding letters with barely any thought, but now everything she wrote felt stilted to her, and even though she knew that they deserved something longer than a four-sentence blurb she couldn't think of anything else to write. It was just awkward to her, communicating with her parents of all people like this. She knew that nothing she wrote, no matter how she phrased it, would be enough to satisfy them, even if she ended up with a twenty-page treatise on exactly where she was going, what she'd be doing, and how it would influence her for the better. Not that she actually knew any of those things to use them to reassure anyone.

And sneaking off so secretively made her feel like she was about to turn into some teenaged runaway. Sure, _she_ knew she'd be back again before too long--jokes about kidnapping aside, she was positive that if something happened that made her _really_ want to go home early Duncan wouldn't _actually_ try to force her to stay away--but she didn't know if her parents would believe it. She hoped that the sixteen years she'd spent as their perfect daughter before any... aberrations... started would have earned her enough trust for them to believe that she was telling the truth, but she knew that they'd never looked at her quite the same way since she'd gotten back from the island and they'd seen the show. She didn't think that they ever would again.

She swallowed down her last few bites of cereal as she thought, twirled her pen between her fingers for a moment, then sighed and added, '_I hope that maybe you can understand; this is the last chance I have to go out there and do something crazy like a normal teenager. I would never do anything like this during the school year, of course, and by this time next year I'll officially be an adult. I wanted to see what it was like, just this once._'

It was a stupid sappy lie, but hopefully a lie would be easier for them to swallow than a truth which they'd hate.

She glanced at the clock and saw that it was time for her to leave. She put her dirty bowl neatly in the sink, stuck her note to the refrigerator, and picked up her bags. At the door she reached for her cell phone on its charger, then hesitated and pulled her hand back. She would be with practically the only person aside from her family and people she worked with who ever called her, and she didn't really want to give her parents a chance to spoil her vacation by calling her up to yell at her.

Just walking out the door without the phone was enough to give her a tiny thrill. The last time she'd allowed herself to be completely cut off from any contact with anyone who needed her was before she started getting really involved with clubs at school, back when she was still just a kid. Even when she'd been on the show she'd known that if there was a real emergency that she needed to help take care of they'd be able to call the network and get in touch with her by way of Chris or one of the other crew members. Even though she was still in her own yard, where her parents would be able to hear her if she turned around and yelled up to their window, not having her cell phone, or a laptop, or even a pager to keep a line of communication open made it feel like she was setting out on a real adventure. So set out she did.

Two blocks from her house there was a small corner store that she'd instructed Duncan to meet her at. She'd chosen it half because she didn't want to risk the sound of his car waking her parents up if he came right to her door, and half because a few years before the owner had covered the entire building with a garish mural of various pieces of produce in an attempt to draw more attention and she thought that would make the store easier for him to find.

As soon as she turned onto the sidewalk she was able to spot the car parked in the shop's small parking lot; he had one of the interior lights on so it stand out even in the still-dark morning. She wondered if he'd driven all night to get there, or if he'd reached her town the night before and had found some place to crash without her even realizing he was close by. She wondered if she could trust him to drive safely, if he had only just gotten there and never had a chance to sleep.

She wondered why on earth she was stalling seeing him by thinking about all of that, and began walking as quickly as she could with her luggage weighing her down.

He must have been watching for her, because when she walked under a streetlight with most of a block still left to go she saw the car door suddenly open and the person inside of it get out.

He approached her so quickly that she hardly even had time to feel nervous, _didn't_ have time to really wonder whether or not things would feel awkward between after they'd gone such a long time without seeing each other; he moved practically at a run. She just had time to draw in breath to greet him when he reached her, and then it was wasted when he tangled his hand in her hair before she could get a word out and dragged her into a kiss.

It was a sure sign of how much things had changed since a year before that she didn't even consider shoving him away, or readying insults or denials to throw at him the second her mouth was free to speak. One of her suitcases fell to the ground, and her freed hand raised to grip the front of his shirt tightly, like she was afraid he might run away if she didn't hold onto him.

It only lasted long enough for her head to clear from the shock of the sudden contact to the point that she could be disappointed it didn't go on longer, and then he was pulling away just far enough for her to see that his smirk was still exactly the same as she remembered it.

"Hey, Princess," he said. "Miss me?"


	3. Two: It's Time To Steal Away

It took Courtney a minute to collect herself, but as soon as she did she frowned slightly and asked, "How could I miss you when you never leave me alone?" Still, at odds with her words she drew him into a tight half-hug with her free arm, only made awkward by the suitcase and dufflebag she was still holding on her other side.

"_Sure_, Babe, I'm the one who won't leave _you_ alone. And who is it that keeps nagging me about studying for a test I won't need to take for a _year?_ How the hell did you even find out about that thing?"

"I'm just making sure I won't need to dump you because weren't able to graduate on time. Honestly, Duncan, there's a limit to how far I'm willing to ignore what a horrible choice for my boyfriend you are."

"Man, Princess, keep talking like that and I might start wondering why the hell I turned down all those show groupie bimbos who might've actually been _nice_ to me," he said, which she thought was a bit unfair. She _had_ just told him that she wanted to stay with him even though it wasn't in her own best interests, after all. But he sounded like he was just teasing instead of actually annoyed, so she didn't get huffy about it. After a second his hand flexed in her hair, hardly a caress, then finally pulled away for the first time since she'd gotten within arm's reach of him. "Speaking of which, before we head out are there any jerks I need to beat the hell out of for hitting on you since you got back home?"

"I _can_ fight my own battles, Duncan. Anyone who got too pushy has already learned to stay away from me."

"Pushiness has nothing to do with it, Princess. Any asshole who thinks they can get away with hitting on you has gotta learn otherwise."

"I don't know how many people are going to believe that, when I somehow ended up dating the pushiest asshole of them all. And it's not like you'd want _me_ chasing down those 'show groupie bimbos' you mentioned," she said, then realized at his smirk that she'd said the wrong thing.

"You _kidding_ me, babe? Man, I'll take a side trip back home just to point out any've them I recognize on the street and watch you rip them to shreds." He picked up her fallen suitcase, then slipped an arm around her waist to guide her towards his car. "Have I ever mentioned how insanely hot you are when you're clobbering someone?"

"Often enough that it's a little bit weird," she replied easily, turning her attention to examining the car as they got close enough for her to see it fairly clearly through the darkness.

He'd always seemed to her to be the type of who'd drive some heap of rust six owners from new, but it was actually surprisingly decent to the point that it was a little dull. After a moment she remembered him telling her the story of how he'd got it back in the fall; after passing the test to get his probationary license he'd wanted his own car, but he didn't have enough spare cash to get one he liked and he'd known his parents would never co-sign for a loan.

But instead of trying to talk the price down on something decent, he'd instead hunted down the absolute worst cars he could find at the limits of his price range, the ones that weren't just overpriced but seriously shouldn't have been offered to anyone but a scrapyard, and took his parents to see them all on the pretence that he wanted their advice on which one he should buy. By the time he tried to convince them to hop into a twenty-year-old Chevy with gaping holes rusted through the floor they were ready to offer to match his cash just to get him into a car that was safe. They'd had a couple of provisions--they had to approve of whatever he wound up getting, and if he didn't pay them back in a timely manner they _would_ start refusing to pay his bail when he got himself locked up and make back their money that way--but he ended up getting exactly what he wanted.

He'd been positively gleeful on the phone when he'd told he about how one of his friend's brother had needed to sell off his car for way less than what it was worth when his college textbooks turned out to cost a lot more than he'd expected and the car had been his only possible source of quick cash. In a scam she still couldn't believe he'd actually gotten away with, Duncan had had the guy bump up the price to just the maximum he could pay with his parents half of the investment--though it was still less than the car was really worth, so she supposed his parents had no reason to think it was anything other than a good deal--and then the two of them had split the difference from the original asking price between themselves. Sure, it hadn't been nearly enough to cover his share of the car's cost, but it at least let him have a fairly decent amount of savings available if he needed it. Decent for a high school student without a regular job, anyway.

"Mind if we just toss your stuff in the backseat?" Duncan asked when they reached it. "The trunk's pretty stuffed."

"Fine, but if we stop somewhere and somebody my bags through the window and steals them, you're paying to replace everything."

He snorted as he threw her suitcase in, showing no regards for any breakables she might have packed in it. Luckily there weren't any. "Nobody's gonna steal your crap, Sweetheart."

"I'd rather be safe than sorry," she said, putting the bags she was carrying in more neatly, then pulling a jacket he had on the seat over them so they'd at least be a little hidden. "Well, I'm ready. Are you finally going to tell me where on Earth you're planning on taking me?"

"Nope," he said cheerfully, getting into the car and gesturing for her to take the passenger seat. "You really think I'd give you a chance to run right home if you decided you didn't like my plans? Not after all the time I had to waste convincing you to come in the first place."

"Because saying something like that is really the way to convince me _not_ to turn around and go back to bed right now," she said, rolling her eyes but taking her seat peaceably enough. She was pleased to see that it looked like he'd actually been thoughtful enough to clean up her spot before picking her up, the mat at her feet still even showing the tell-tell marks of a carwash vacuum. "Are you going to lock me in now so I can't make a break for it?"

"Good idea, Babe," he said, flashing her a smirk and flicking the door lock before starting the car up. "Tell you what, I'll give you one hint about what we could end up doing right now. If we take a side trip north on the way, we can stop at Harold's hometown on the way so you can give him one last for being a weasely little cheating bastard."

Courtney frowned, and leaned back against her door to look at him through narrowed eyes. "Why do you even _know_ where he lives?"

"I just told you five minutes ago, didn't I? You, getting a chance to beat the hell out of someone? Who's _not_ me? _Hot._ Your choice if we head that way, though. I wouldn't want to risk running into the little slimeball if violence isn't in the gameplan." Hardly two minutes onto the road he pulled off again, into a 24-hour fast food joint. "Man, I'm _starving_. Want anything, Princess?"

She wasn't really hungry after her own breakfast, but didn't especially want to sit there watching him shovel food into his mouth without anything else to do until it got light enough for her to pull out a book. "I'll take a fruit yogurt, I guess. And a small coffee; I'm not used to being up this early." She tapped on her armrest and watched him as he ordered, then leaned her head back and closed her eyes when he started digging into his pocket for his wallet. "I think I'll choose to leave Harold alone. It's not like you can hold onto a grudge forever."

Well, she _could_. But she wasn't going to let him exploit that fact to get some bizarre thrill.

"Whatever. If you change your mind, we can always hit him up on the way back." He got their food and passed her portion to her, stealing a swig of her coffee before handing it over.

Courtney made a face at him. "Oh, gross Duncan. If you wanted something to drink, you should have gotten your own."

"You've had my tongue in your mouth before, Sweetheart. Today. _Little_ late to get squeamish about germs."

"Well for future reference, kissing you isn't my way of giving you permission to slobber all over anything you want. At least ask first." He ignored her in favor of tearing into the first of the burgers he'd bought himself, and she wrinkled her nose. "I don't know how you can stand to eat those greasy things. They've probably been sitting under a heat lamp since midnight."

"Still better than that crap Chef used to make," Duncan said with a shrug, as they finally turned onto the road leading straight out of her town and the real start of their vacation. "You'd better get used to this greasy crap, Princess; if you think I've got the cash to take you to _real_ restaurants for three weeks you're gonna be disappointed."

"I know that. But they do have salads." She poked at her yogurt with her spoon, taking an occasional bite as she watched the streets go by and the distance between houses grow wider and wider until they reached the place where they left the suburbs behind completely. "Okay, there's not going to be another stop sign until we're _much_ too far away for me to jump out and try walking home. Will you tell me where we're going _now?_"

"Y'know, I'm kind've surprised you couldn't figure it out for yourself," he said, flashing her a grin then reaching out to open up the glove compartment. He must have had it packed tight, because the moment it fell open travel books and printouts began tumbling out onto her lap. "We're heading on a little road trip, Princess. Time for you to start figuring out what you want to see on the way."


	4. Three: On My Way to the Promised Land

**Important Note:** I'm sure this will surprise nobody, but I've decided to declare this fic AU from TDA and onward. I tried to avoid having to do it--part of the reason this chapter's so late is because I kept hoping that maybe her arc would wrap up in a way I could work with--but I can't get past the way they totally abandoned her season one character arc because they needed a villain.

To make the split from canon as simple as possible, just assume that TDA happened mostly as aired, except that Courtney was never brought back outside of the Aftermath episodes everyone was a part of. (If Duncan winds up winning, feel free to assume that he's either using as little of his money as possible on purpose because he's saving it for when he moves out of home, or that his parents forced him to put most of it in a savings account until he's a legal adult and is free to blow through it as he pleases, or that he was voted out earlier without Courtney around drawing all the negative attention; it's not really going to come up in-story so think whichever you want.)

Also, sorry for taking so long with this chapter! It's been such a huge wait that I ended up deciding not to do the entire first day in one part once I reached a good stopping point so it wouldn't take even longer to get out.

**Important Note #2:** Because I feel kind of awkward about posting the same thing on livejournal and at at the same time, since I don't know how many people over there would already be reading it here, I've decided to make the version of the story I post over at livejournal and _extended edition_. The story itself won't be any different, but there will be pictures and notes about the route they're taking over there that you won't find here. If you're interested in seeing it, the story will be on the ttldramaisland and duncanxcourtney communities, or you can follow the link in my profile to my LJ and just look in my memories starting with this chapter.

* * *

The first couple of hours of their trip passed quietly. Courtney dozed off not long after finishing her yogurt, her coffee only half-drained; she could never sleep deeply in a car, but the light cat nap she fell into was enough to make the time pass more quickly and make her feel a little more rested. Whenever her mind edged towards consciousness she kept expecting Duncan to start blaring the radio or doing something else to disturb her at any second, but the closest he ever got to it was the time she heard him humming to himself while he drummed his fingertips against the steering wheel.

It was over two hours later that she finally gave up on sleep, when the rising sun starting shining on her so brightly that she could see its glaring right through her eyelids. "_Ugh_," she groaned, squinching her eyes up tightly and throwing her arm over them. "Why are we going _east?_ There's not enough land that way for a _one day_ road trip, let alone three weeks."

He snorted, and sounded amused when he replied, "We're heading _north_, Princess. Try turning your head _away_ from your window."

"Or you could try driving west," she said, slowly pushing herself up straight with a yawn. Even as the words left her mouth she realized that it was a silly thing to say, but she decided to give herself a pass; she was still pretty dozy, so she could hardly be expected to be in top form. She fumbled for her coffee and the caffeine boost she'd get from it, then glared at Duncan when she found the cup empty.

"Hey, you wanted it, you should've finished it," he said. "The crap was cold sludge by the time I finished it off anyway."

"Not the point," she said, leaning back in her seat and combing her fingers through her hair to try and get it neat again after her catnap. "Out of curiosity, have you ever even _considered_ trying _not_ to be a criminal for a few hours? Half-a-day, maybe?"

"Not for a minute," he said cheerfully. "But it's not exactly 'criminal' when I'm the one who paid for the drink."

"That doesn't count when you bought it as a gift."

He laughed, smile lines crinkling around the corner of his eye as he gave her a sideways glance. "Never figured you for an easy date, Princess. Gotta remember when your birthday comes around that you think a two-buck cup of coffee counts as a present."

"Oh please. You know what I mean."

He answered with a quick humming noise that could have meant anything, focusing for a moment on changing lanes. "Wanna find some music for us?" he asked when he was done, nodding towards the radio.

Courtney started reaching for the radio, then hesitated. "In my family music has always been driver's choice," she said, grudgingly. It was the only fair thing to do, letting the person doing all the work listen to whatever they wanted, but pretty much _everything_ she knew about him told her that it wasn't likely that she'd enjoy his taste in music.

"You're the one who lives around here, Babe; I don't know crap about the stations out here."

She rolled her eyes at him, starting to remember that that was something she'd be doing _often_ while in his presence. "I know that it's a small province, but it's not _nearly_ little enough for radio frequencies to reach from border to border. By now we're out of range of most of the stations I know."

Still, she reached for the radio and tried to think of any stations her family listened to that came from far enough west that they might still come in. She was about to switch the radio to AM and check a classical music station that she enjoyed, but she paused, glancing quickly at Duncan out of the corner of her eye. She remembered when she'd woken up earlier, and heard him humming to himself rather than putting on music and risking disturbing her even though he'd probably been bored senseless by driving in the dark without even any conversation to keep him entertained.

So she sighed, and instead changed to a classic rock station her father listened to sometimes. He would enjoy it more than any concerto, she guessed, and with older songs that had stood the test of time she guessed that the odds would be about sixty-forty that she wouldn't dislike any given song; much better than the odds she'd give any more contemporary station.

When Duncan starting tapping the steering wheel again to the beat of the first song that started playing she knew that she'd made a good choice.

They sat mostly in companionable silence through the next several songs, Courtney because she wanted to wake up a little more before they fell into their usual pattern of bizarrely-affectionate bickering (not that she'd have things any other way, but dealing with him could get _exhausting_ when she wasn't at her top energy levels), Duncan, she assumed, because he was too tired to bother her. She took the time to start flipping through the guidebooks, making note of anything that looked interesting and not _too_ tourist-trappy.

Her own interests ran towards touring of historical government buildings--it was a dream of Courtney's that someday she'd do something historically important enough that in a century or so people would be taking tours through a place that _she'd_ worked--but she could just imagine what an annoying mess one of _those_ would be with Duncan. He'd be bored, and god knew that he wouldn't just suffer in silence and let _her_ enjoy herself, content in the knowledge that he'd probably be dragging her off to something she didn't care about before long. If she was _lucky_ he'd just keep up a stream of sarcastic commentary if she tried dragging him to one of them, if she wasn't she was sure he wouldn't feel the least bit guilty about wandering off and doing something that would get them kicked out. And possibly incarcerated.

No, when she was choosing her stops the safest bet would probably be just ignoring tourist spots and pointing him towards cities that were big enough that they should both be able find something to do. Maybe some amusement parks too, for the sake of doing something more vacationey, provided that she could get him to swear that he wouldn't try forcing her onto any rides she didn't want to get within ten feet of.

She wondered if she could trust him to keep his mouth shut through a play, if she let him help pick it. It wasn't like getting a little culture would _kill_ him.

She tossed aside the first guidebook, deciding that she'd already _been_ to everywhere at all interesting in her own province during old family vacations, and reached for the one on Quebec just as Duncan blurted out, "Ha! _There's_ our first stop!"

Courtney whipped her head up, but only caught sight of a brief blur of grey on the billboard he'd been looking at before they were past it. "What? Where?"

"The World's Largest Axe," he said, sounding bizarrely proud like he thought he'd just hit upon the best travel idea in the world.

Courtney frowned at him, trying to decide if he could _actually_ be serious. "You want our first stop to be some giant axe?"

"Hell yeah I do! We're on a _road trip_, Babe; you've _got_ to stop at some of the roadside garbage." He flashed her the grin that she _hated_, the one that always made her somehow go along with his ideas in spite of herself, and added, "Besides, it'll bring back good memories. The first thing I ever did for you was axing that roach in your cabin, remember?"

She just _stared_ at him, no other appropriate reaction coming to mind. The stupidity wasn't even _worth_ getting angry about. "Those were the girls on the _other_ team, you dope," she finally said.

"It was?" His forehead wrinkled as he started to look way more lost in thought than Courtney liked in the person driving a car she was in, but he snapped out of it before she could prepare to grab the wheel if necessary. "Huh, guess you're right. Doesn't matter anyway; I still want to see the thing."

"Oh, whatever," she said, opening up the travel guide she'd grabbed. "We should stop soon anyway, and I guess that an actual place would be more worth it than a rest stop."

He took her reading as the dismissal of the argument that it was, and a minute later he was singing along to Pink Floyd while she flipped through the events section. She didn't expect to actually find anything worth doing there--what were the chances that there'd happen to be something interesting going one while they were passing through?--but it was more interesting to skim over than umpteen pages of two-line restaurant reviews. And if she did see anything interesting there was always next year, although even as she thought that she mentally scolded herself for it; she knew that she shouldn't just assume that there would even _be_ a next year.

But thinking along those lines made her stomach revolt strangely, like she'd throw up all over his car if she didn't stop it _that instant_. So she just focused on her reading, and was surprised to find that maybe there was something worth doing that day after all.

"Did you see how far it was to that axe? Do you think the local library will be open when we get into town?" she asked, looking doubtfully at the clock on the dashboard.

"Jesus, Princess; if you're planning on turning this road trip into a tour of libraries across Canada than you've got _no_ right to judge whatever crap I want to do on it."

"Oh, please, I'm not _that_ boring. I just want to check something online, and unless you've got a laptop away hidden somewhere I'm going to need to find a computer I can use to do it."

"Eh, it's not like this place'll be your only chance. We're gonna need to stop for lunch eventually, so you can find somewhere then if nothing's open now. Unless you need it for something we're gonna hit before then?" He craned his neck to try looking at the page she had open. "What are you looking at anyway?"

She smacked his arm with more force than was probably wise to use against someone who was driving. "Are you _crazy?_ Eyes on the road!"

"There's this cool invention called 'cruise control', Sweetheart. It means we won't be zooming into another car if I look away for a few seconds."

"No, what it means is that I'm getting out of the car as soon as we stop and finding a pay-phone I can use to call my parents and get them to pick me up unless you promise to _knock it off_," she insisted, though she knew that the threat could only be empty as she made it; what were the chances that she'd even be able to find a pay-phone in the current day and age if she looked? "I don't know _how_ you think cruise control works, but it's not going to keep you from weaving around the road if you're doing something as stupid as trying to read while driving, and I'm not driving all the way across the country with somebody who'll put my life at risk like that."

"Fine, whatever. You feel like being paranoid, I'll go along with it."

"Good." She snapped the travel guide closed, and tossed it with the others. "As for what I was looking at, you'll find _that_ out when we get there. You're not the only one who can be all mysterious about what we're going to be doing on this vacation."

He laughed and reached over to squeeze the hand she had sitting on the armrest, keeping his eyes fixed on the road true to his word as he felt for it. "I do like a woman with secrets."

He left his hand there, and Courtney stared at it wondering if she should move her own. They'd never been the type of couple who just casually touched like that; they'd never really even had a _chance_ to be, when they'd been separated by the hundreds of miles between their hometowns as soon as they were away from the show and had a chance to start trying to develop the insane rush from then into a normal relationship. It wasn't as if it were _unpleasant_, far from it in fact, but she just wasn't used to coming into contact with him when it wasn't just in the spur of the moment.

Before she could decide what she was going to do, Duncan piped up again. "Hey, over there! I think I see the handle."

Sure enough, in the distance Courtney spotted a huge stick jutting into the sky. "...Well, I bet Freud would think that's an interesting first impression to want your town to make," she muttered to herself.

"Bet you I can make it there in ten minutes, Babe," he said, and she could feel the car starting to speed up beneath them even as he spoke.

"I don't know how you can even expect this trip to last three weeks if you're going to start speeding every time you get near someplace you want to go," she told him. "The police will take away your license _long_ before we make it to the left coast."

"This doesn't count as speeding when we're on the highway, Princess. It's just the high end of normal. Now _that_ chick's speeding." He nodded to a car which was just flying past them. Although Courtney didn't agree with Duncan's idea of what qualified as speeding, she could recognize that he wasn't the one the police would be going after if they happened to be watching that stretch of road.

In the end the only issue that they had was working out exactly how to get to the axe, a problem Duncan solved by doing his best to drive straight towards it without leaving the road. When she was actually standing in front of it Courtney realized that it actually was impressive, in a weird way. It looked like it was just waiting for some giant woodsman to come scoop it up and begin chopping down trees, although anyone big enough to lift it would have to be so massive that he could probably knock the trees straight over with a quick shove. Courtney had never been a person given to flights of fancy like that, but it was an interesting mental picture.

Although that was really only enough to hold her interest until she became accustomed to its size. Once that initial burst of awe wore off it was just an axe, and she didn't have Duncan's _thing_ for pointy objects. It was already losing its luster by the time Duncan dug a camera out of his glove compartment and gestured for her to climb up onto the platform the axe was stuck on. "Get up there and say 'cheese', Sweetheart."

She did as he asked, rolling her eyes even as she smiled. "I can't believe that _you're_ the type of person who likes taking sight-seeing photos."

The camera flashed and he tossed it back into the car before she even had the chance to pose properly for a picture. A moment later he hopped up onto the platform in front of her and planted his hands flat against the metal of the axe head to either side of her, trapping her in place with his arms. "I only do it when there's a sight in the way _worth_ seeing. Now tell me, Princess; have you ever made out against a national monument?"

"I don't think a roadside attraction really counts as a--" she began, only to be cut off by his lips before she could get into the definition of a national monument or the fact that even if it did count as one he should know full well that no, she hadn't, since they'd never been to one together before. He pressed her back against the axe with his body, but it was still so early in the day that the sun hadn't had a chance to warm the metal and the shock of the chill of it against her back made her arch sharply forward away from the cold.

That was the only reason, really; a purely involuntarily reaction. It certainly had nothing to do with the way it left her pressed even more tightly against him, and she was only glad for the arm he slid into the space behind the small of her back to hold her there because of the buffer of heat it made between her and the axehead. It wasn't just because the way he nipped at her mouth, or how he stroked the thin line of skin that was revealed when wrapping her arms around him made the bottom of her shirt pull up a little, made he _want_ to crush herself against him as tightly as possible. It wasn't because just the one kiss he'd stolen from her that morning wasn't enough to satisfy her after an entire year of separation. That wasn't it at all.

Really.

o 0 O 0 o

In the end she never found out whether the library was open or not. Before they found it she spotted a small internet cafe with a few ancient desktop computers set up that anyone without a laptop could rent time on for a couple of bucks. She took care of her business while Duncan went down the road to top off his gas tank.

When they met up again she insisted that he let her drive. "You've been awake for _how_ long now?" she'd asked as she pushed him towards the passenger side. "Put the seat back and get some sleep; I'll wake you up when it's time to stop somewhere for lunch."

"It's not like I've never been up longer, and you know it," he'd told her, though he let himself be herded.

"And doing so made you a cranky jerk, so that's _hardly_ going to convince me to let you try it again."

He'd ended up going along with her, on the condition that instead of waiting for lunch she wake him up when they were close to the border, and was asleep almost the moment he got his seat reclined. It made Courtney worry a little about how tired her must have been the entire time he was the one in the driver's seat, but she realized that it was a little too late to start thinking about the danger involved once it had already passed.

It was interesting, watching him sleep. Not that she'd never seen it before, of course, but during the show it had always only been for a few seconds before he woke up. She'd never caught him when he was really deeply asleep.

He didn't look innocent, the way cliche would suggest. She doubted that anything short of massive head trauma leading to complete amnesia could bring out _that_ trait in him. But he did relax; the way the tension drained out of him made suddenly obvious how much he always held himself like he was ready to put up a fight if necessary while he was awake.

It was definitely gratifying to know that he could relax that way around her so easily that he hadn't even needed to toss and turn at all to settle down. She might be reading to much into it, of course--there was always the possibility that if she hunted down the other guys from the show and asked they'd tell her that he'd always passed straight out when they were sharing a room and it had nothing to do with her--but from the way he always freaked out when Chris pulled one of his rude awakenings she rather doubted it.

And even if that were true, it didn't really matter. It still made her feel strangely happy just watching him sprawled out at peace the way he was, and how many things could she say _that_ about?

It was nice enough that when she started seeing signs indicating that they were near Edmundston, and the border just a few kilometers beyond it, she considered just ignoring his request to wake him up. It was ridiculous for him to even want to be woken up that soon anyway; a couple of hours was hardly long enough for him to really feel rested, and they still had a few more to go before lunchtime that he could use.

But she knew him well enough to realize how much he'd annoy her if she ignored his request. Under different circumstances it might be worth it, the cycle of them bugging each other now a game as much as anything, but being stuck in a car with him for days and unable to get away for a while if he pushed it too far would not be a good situation to deliberately provoke him in. Not if she valued her own continued sanity.

"Hey, it's time to get up," she told him softly when they finally got close enough that she couldn't put it off a moment longer, trying to wake him gently. His only response was to snort and shift onto his side facing her without waking up. Next she reached over to give his elbow a quick shake. "Come on, Duncan. If you don't get up soon, you have no right to complain when you wake up and realize we're already in Quebec!"

Again there was no response, aside from his face scrunching up for a moment.

She frowned, then quickly glanced in her mirrors and over her shoulders to make absolutely positive she was a safe distance away from the nearest other cars. "Okay, you asked for this," she told him, and stretched out to squeeze his nose shut.

At first there was no reaction, and Courtney silently vowed that if he turned out to the type of person who could just switch to breathing through their mouth without waking up at all then she was _giving up_. True, she hated to turn away from a challenge, but it hardly counted when there was there was no real benefit to seeing it through.

Then Duncan gasped and lashed aimlessly out at her, his eyes flying open a moment later as he started to cough.

"Duncan! No hitting the driver!" Courtney squealed, just barely managing to push back her instinctual urge to dodge away from his flailing arm and yank the steering wheel to the side along with her.

At the sound of her voice his eyes flew to her face, and just for a moment he seemed completely shocked to see her; shocked, and so happy at her presence that she found herself blushing faintly at his obvious pleasure. But it only lasted for a split second before he seemed to remember what was going on and the look was hidden behind his usual easy but not especially revealing grin.

"We almost out of your dinky province?" he asked, stretching as best he could in his car seat. Courtney pursed her lips but refrained from commenting when that involved unbuckling his seatbelt; it wasn't as though he was in any danger as long as _she_ was the one in the driver's seat anyway.

Instead she focused on what he'd said. "It's not _dinky_. We've been driving all morning and we're still inside of it, that's a perfectly respectable size."

He snorted and smirked at her, "Wow, _all_ morning. Impressive. You want to know how far you'd get in one morning where _I'm_ from?"

"Oh, shut up. Anyway, yes, we're almost at the border. In fact, I think that's the sign up ahead."

He leaned forward towards the windshield to look, and she didn't bother giving him the further direction that it was still just on the edge of her vision, so he needed to look well ahead if he wanted to spot it himself. After a moment, when they were a little closer, he seemed to manage to find it on his own and leaned back with a satisfied expression on his face. "Pull over when we get there," he instructed her.

"What? Why?"

"Just do it, Babe. It's not gonna take that long."

"Fine, be cryptic. I supposed I can stop, if that's what you want."

It didn't take that long at a hundred-and-ten kilometers per hour. Soon enough the sign was bidding them a cheerful 'bienvenue' to Quebec, and she pulled the car off onto the shoulder next to it, trying to ignore the feeling that everyone driving past were gawking at them as they went by.

Once again he pulled his camera out of the glove box. "Come on, we need to get up there."

"Oh my God, Duncan, have you turned into someone's _grandpa_? I mean, pictured of roadside attractions are one thing, but border signs? Are you going to turn them into a slideshow next?"

"Ooh, Princess, talk sarcastic to me some more. You know how much I like it." He hopped out of the car and, when she didn't immediately follow, walked around to pop open her door and offer her his hand. She could only stare for a second at the thoughtless courtesy of the gesture before she accepted it and let him yank her out of the car. "Make fun of me as much as you want; you're hot as hell when you do it," he said as he lead her up in front of the sign and positioned them in front of it, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "But I'm sick of watching that damn show whenever I want to get a look at you. So _I'm_ taking pictures everywhere we head through, and _you're_ not complaining about it because I'm gonna need to end up with enough to last me for a year."

He held the camera out at arms length and squeezed her more tightly to his side, but just before his finger clicked on the shutter button she had to look away with a blush when he added, seemingly as an afterthought, "But after _that_, I get to keep you." 


	5. Hiatus Notice

Since allows you to have one chapter as an author's note, and this is the first story I've ever not touched for ages that actually has a reason besides "no inspiration right now" for my time gone, I thought that I really should officially put it on hiatus and offer a quick explanation for anyone who's been hoping for an update.

I don't want to go to deeply into personal details, but very shortly before I posted the last chapter my mom was hospitalized and after spending the better part of the year with deteriorating health eventually died.

For most of my stories this didn't have much effect on how much writing did or didn't get done; generally writing helps distract me and makes me feel better for while. But _this_ story was different.

_Open Road_ is the only thing I've ever written where the (intended) plotline draws very heavily from my own real life. Specifically from roadtrips I took with my mom and grandma and aunt every summer from the time I was nine until the last one just a month before she was admitted to the hospital. The locations Duncan and Courtney'll be visiting and their personalities and reactions to things that will be happening are very different from any of our ours, but any number of little hassles of the road or ways of deciding on stops that I have planned for the story are based on real things that happened to us.

And since my mom got sick, and even worse since she died, I just can't focus when I'm trying to write something that reminds me so strongly of her. The only reason I was even able to get chapter four up was that it was already almost complete.

So I just wanted to apologize and, as I said at the start, officially declare this story on hiatus until I can reliably work on it without getting stupidly teary-eyed over a story that's supposed to be light and humorous. But after _that_ I do still have my outline for the story so I'll be able to pick it back up again and have it go on as planned (and, no, the events of World Tour aren't going to change any of it). I hope you all understand.

And, hey, I might actually write some more shorter fics in the fandom again now that I'll be able to pick up the characters without feeling guilty that I'm not using them to work on this story!

Cheers everyone,  
Person 


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